The Long Road
by JustSteph
Summary: Pretend Sara needed a little more help than she was letting on after her DUI...
1. Chapter 1

1.

_Day __One – Sara._

Rehab.

I got here this afternoon and already I've learnt that 'residents' are divided into two categories: depressed, and addicted.

Usually the depressed are assigned their own rooms right away, while the addicted are made to sweat it out for a day or two in one of the 'observation rooms' – giant fish-tanks with beds that remind me of the offices at CSI Headquarters. I can only imagine the horrors that take place in these rooms, and thankfully all I have to do is imagine: since I was referred here after my one and only PEAP Counseling meeting rather than after a week-long bender, I get to skip observation and sleep in my own room. I'm grateful for this, but at the same time it leaves me in this weird kind of 'addictive-depressive' limbo. I'm not doing cold-turkey with the other drunks, but I'm also not doing group with the depressives.

When I was feeling less sickly than I do now, I can remember thinking that my room was quite nice. I guess that's one of the fringe benefits of being in the force: the healthcare rocks. Too bad it's going to take more than four cheery walls to make me better, and with that thought I can't help but feel my stomach lurch that little bit more when I consider what's ahead of me. Opening up, talking… these are things that I've aspired to on more than one occasion in my life, but each time I think I've gotten closer to achieving one of them I clam up worse than before. I don't know if I'm more scared of that happening again, or of the fact that this time I might actually spill.

I'm edgy for sure, and I wouldn't like to say what I'd be willing to do for some hard liquor right now. I'm definitely craving, and it's not like I can take my mind off it by going for a run, because – get this – I haven't been cleared for physical exercise. The only other thing I can think of to take the edge off doesn't seem appropriate in a secure facility, besides which, nausea isn't exactly putting me in the mood.

Flipping TV channels got old as soon as the people on them started to seriously piss me off, which took all of five seconds. Equally annoying though is having the TV off and listening to myself. The most ridiculous part is that I still have the audacity to feel self-pity; _if only_ I hadn't gotten into my car that night, _if only_ the cops hadn't pulled me over. Mot irrationally of all: _if only Catherine had been the supervisor in charge that night and not Grissom_.

I know, I know, Catherine Willows and I don't see eye to eye on much; on anything, I sometimes think. But Catherine would've been – _cooler_ – about this. Ok, that would mainly be due to the fact that she doesn't care enough about me to give me hell like Gil did; it wouldn't even enter her head to enforce PEAP sessions – actually, it wouldn't even enter her head to give me a hug or ask me if I was ok, and that would be just fine with me. I could've carried on the way I was.

Except, deep down I know I couldn't have.

But this tiny part of me screams that maybe Catherine would've asked me if I was ok; would have given me that hug, and yes, maybe she would have made me attend the PEAP Counseling that led me to this place, but she would've been so much _lovelier_ about it than Grissom. I've seen Catherine act maternal, not just to her kid but to everyone on the team apart from me. Somehow, even when she approaches me with caring it comes off cocky and self-assured, rather than soothing and gentle.

_"Wanna get a beer?" confident blue eyes stare at me from confident facial features. I know this is her way of trying to make it ok that I just found out the guy I was seeing has a girlfriend._

"_Drive." I know that this is her way of making it ok, and I know I want to let her. I'll take what I can get._

There's something deep down in my personality that makes me need Catherine's approval – I call it my 'puppy dog' syndrome - and that's what makes me so angry. I'm not really angry at her, but angry at myself for even caring what she thinks of me. I know, logically, that I am a grown woman and I don't need Catherine to validate me. And yet at the same time, my ultimate fantasy of Catherine is of her wrapping her arms around me and telling me that she's here for me. Hugging me as a friend and looking into my eyes as I stare into her azure blues with a degree of compassion. I know she has it in her; I just want it directed at me.

I allow myself a wry smile when I consider what Greg would make of that being my 'best' Catherine fantasy. After he'd first picked himself up off the floor from the very idea of me even _having_ Catherine fantasies, he'd tell me that I was a disgrace to human kind and that he was disappointed in me: why couldn't I imagine Catherine in lingerie dancing up a storm around a pole, or spread on her desk with her chest heaving and her curls falling around her shoulders? There's no way I'd be able to explain to him that although, since I am only human and Catherine has Venus De Milo aesthetics, I _do_ think about those things from time to time, and sometimes I _do_ wish she could express her passion towards me in an entirely different way: fucking not fighting; more than all of that I'd like us to get past all this hostility and trust each other. When we work a case together, we're a fantastic team. Maybe it's our all-work-no-talk attitude that facilitates this, or maybe our compatibility at work is indicative of our potential compatibility as friends.

Fresh waves of nausea roll my stomach over, bringing me back to the reality of my situation. I could go round in circles thinking about Catherine and I and our dysfunctions, but it doesn't do me any good. Grissom was the one on shift that night; he sent me to the shrinks and the shrinks sent me here, to rehab.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

_Day Two – Catherine._

Being called into Grissom's office first thing on a shift is a rarity. For one, that fact that he's remembered that it's the beginning of shift, rather than getting caught up with all his beastly friends until whoever draws the short straw has to come and alert him to the fact, is a mere miracle. Secondly, Grissom keeps one-on-ones to a minimum; they make him uncomfortable, and when it comes to evaluation time it's us who have to prompt him for the required interviews. So I guess you could say that being greeted with 'Grissom needs you' before I had even entered the building has thrown me for a loop somewhat.

"Catherine?" He questions.

I return to the room. "Sorry, Gil. Miles away. What's up?"

"Actually Catherine, I wanted to talk to you about Sara." I frown. I haven't done anything; haven't all-out fought with the woman in… ha! I can't even remember how long it's been, which says something about the tenuous – friendship? – we seem to have been working towards.

"Gil, Sara and I have been good as gold for weeks now. We're doing ok," I say, flashing him what I hope is a winning smile.

"You might be doing fine, but Sara's not. Look, I got a call from PD last week. Sara got caught driving over the limit; they didn't charge her with a DUI, but they did call me in."

Oh. "Oh." Great response Willows.

"I arranged for her to take a couple of days off and start PEAP sessions the next day. I don't know what was said in her first session exactly, but the gist of it is this: Sara has a drinking problem. Not only that, but she seems to have a drinking problem to cover up the fact that she has some emotional problems, too."

I frown again, bigger this time. Of course I feel bad finding out that a member of our team is having such a rough time, however colorful mine and Sara's past may be. "Okay," I say slowly "that's pretty bad, Gil. But what…"

He holds a hand up to tell me to shut up; that he's just about to answer my question. No one but Grissom could ever get away with this gesture towards me. "Whatever she said to the PEAP counselor obviously worried him enough that he thinks Sara is a danger to herself. He doesn't believe her recent drinking was a phase either; he thinks it's an addiction. So Sara's gone…"

"…to rehab." I finish stoically, and then whistle "phew. Never would've seen that one coming."

"I know" says Gil.

"Is she ok?"

"Uh, I think so. I haven't spoken to her; I don't think she's allowed visitors yet."

"And let me guess, you don't want to pull any CSI strings?" Gris and his non-political politics.

"Well, no, I don't. But in this case I don't think we _should_. I think our interference might make things worse for Sara. When she sees us for the first time since going into rehab, it has to be because she, and a team of healthcare professionals, thinks that she is well enough. We all care for Sara and want what's best for her, but if night shift turns up at the clinic tomorrow all guns blazing, she's going to see it as pressure to get better and get back to work. And as you know, she's fond of overworking herself."

"Wow, Gil. That was sensitive on a level never previously observed in you," I say, "and for the record I think you're right. But that doesn't mean that, as soon as she's ready, I won't be there for her. I know a thing or two about rehab myself, remember."

And it's true, I do: from the days when I was a cokehead stripper, a walking cliché. There's a reason for the cliché though; reason being that towards the end of an eight-hour shift, sometimes crack was the only thing that made me feel like I could shake my ass in six inch stilettos, particularly with the level of clientele who were still around at that point. It got worse than that though; spiraled into something I did when I would wake up in the afternoon, 'something to get me out of bed' I would tell myself. Then I would medicate before, during, and - just for good measure - after going on stage. I thought that the fact it never interfered with my dancing was a credit to me, but now I see that as an indication of how detached I had become. An automaton, Femme-Bot Catherine if you will.

"Usually I'd say that you and Sara should stay away from each other until she feels better, but I think that having a familiar face who knows what she's going through might be a good thing." Grissom tells me, and I smile at him.

"And it's not like she needs to feel embarrassed about having an addiction. Between my penchant for narcotics, Warwick's gambling and now Sara's boozing, we have the three main areas covered," I grin at him, hoping he takes this for the joke that it is. He smiles back at me, and I'm glad for that smile. He's clearly very worried about Sara, and maybe even a little guilty? I don't know.

I leave his office holding a card with the name and number of the clinic Sara's staying in. It's a private facility, fairly small, about an hour out of the city. I wonder briefly if she's mixing with celebrities, and then smile ruefully as I realize that Sara probably wouldn't know if she was in the company of the rich and famous anyway, and if she did it wouldn't faze her. That's my girl.

"_I know who I am… but you seem to be a little confused."_

"_Two sharp women are better than one."_

Thinking of Sara's words the first time we met makes me smile. Her hair was in ringlets; I remember thinking how much nicer it was than the bob I had going on back then. She used to look lighter in those days; bigger smile, pinker lipstick. It's as if she's been slipping lately and no one has been able to reach her. I know that the others have tried, and as she gets on so much better with them than with me I've kept my distance, letting them go for it. I thought Nick, Greg and Grissom would be able to get through to her, if anyone could. I guess that's why I ignored the shadows under her eyes and settled for antagonizing her less instead, although now that she's in rehab I'm wondering if there's more I could have done to help. Maybe though, Sara, like me, had to hit the bottom before she could start to come back up. It's definitely early days to start waxing philosophical about the good that may come of this though.

I sigh loudly. Walk it off, Willows. Time to go solve some crimes.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

_Day Three - Sara._

I'm climbing the walls of this place; pacing up and down as if I can wear a hole in the floor and escape that way. I can't feel like this any more; can't feel this shaky and nauseous. It's making me feel vulnerable, like I need to curl up in a corner and cry, and that is the last thing I want to do.

'So crying while you stomp around breaking in your sneakers is a much better alternative?' I ask myself bitterly.

These tears are born of frustration though; the pure frustration and utter disgust with myself that I could be weak and stupid enough to become addicted to alcohol. I need. A drink. So badly. What's that phrase about selling your grandmother for something you really want? Well let's just say that if my grandma were still alive, she'd have long since been on the market.

I stamp my feet and curse, and then feel utterly ridiculous. Ruefully I think 'great, I'm a kid again.' In my house growing up there was a lot of cursing and stomping of feet, although not much of it came from me. As a teenaged foster-child I was a little more difficult, and can remember expressing the anger that always seems to have burned in me with my feet, hands… anything I could lash out with really.

I'm not seriously entertaining thoughts of hurting other people or myself, but even if I were it would be impossible in this place. No belts, shoelaces, razors or scissors allowed, plus about a million other little rules designed to keep us safe. They wouldn't even let me keep my own vitamin tablets in my room; a routine that I am meticulous about. What am I going to do, overdose on evening primrose oil?! Last night they brought me cheese and crackers as a late-night snack, but wouldn't provide a knife to spread the butter on with, not even one of those crappy plastic ones. Luckily I wasn't feeling at all like eating last night; being, as I am today, in full swing of my detox. The cynic in me smirks every time I encounter one of these boundaries, knowing that if I wanted – in fact, if _any_ of us wanted to get around them – we could.

I'm kind of glad I'm allowed neither visitors nor time with my cell phone at the minute. I'm in what my psychiatrist referred to earlier as 'the anger stage,' which I think any of the nurses here could have deduced by the way I snarl at them when they come in and offer me food. They're probably very nice people, but when my guts feel like they've been cleaned with one of those old-fashioned washboards and hung on the line to dry, their attention isn't really welcome.

This had really better end soon, because I am sick of the banging in my head and the churning in my stomach, and of the self-pity that comes pouring out of me at times like this. 'You did this, Sidle,' I tell myself, and I can taste the hot, salty tears that pour down my face towards my mouth as I slump down against the wall and put my head in my hands.

Let me out. The road ahead is too long for me.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

_Day Four – Catherine._

Driving the Denali home from work at eight in the morning, I reflect on how glad I am that today is my day off. This past week hasn't been the best I've ever had, what with us being a member of staff down and all pretty beat up about it. Grissom decided it was for the best to let the whole of nightshift know about Sara's current whereabouts, although we're sworn to secrecy against the lab techs and day and swing shifts. He thinks that hiding away has clearly made things worse for Sara, and that when she gets better she needs an open and honest environment where people can cut her a bit of slack. I can see where he's going with the first bit; I don't want Sara to have to hide anymore because I know from my wreck of a marriage how frustrating that can be, but to be honest I don't see Sara asking for leeway any time soon. Seeing us cutting her slack would probably annoy her, if how defensive she gets when she thinks I'm treading on her toes in a case is anything to go by. Then again, maybe when she's better things will be different; maybe _she'll_ be different.

Ecklie knows, of course, and walks around with this smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face which makes Nick's nostrils flare and Warwick's jaw tighten to the point where I'm genuinely worried about him contracting TMJ. Only that _rat_ could get satisfaction out of Sara's destruction, using it to prove that she's 'a loose cannon with a gun,' and yet he doesn't even have the guts to say anything about it to our faces; probably because he knows how well it'd go over.

The case I've be working on these past two nights has been hellacious, to say the least. The things parents will do to their children don't shock me anymore, but they still tear me up a little, which is why I'm even more grateful that I get to pick my baby up from school and spend all night and all of tomorrow with her. I really haven't been seeing Lindsey enough one-on-one lately, or even in a group situation I guess, although I don't think any amount of time with my child could be enough.

Lost in my reverie, I pull the car into my driveway and enter the house. I throw my keys down on the side table in the hall, and spy the business card from the rehab facility Sara's in. I know that when I first went in I was on a strict lockdown, but that was years ago. The protocol where she is might be different. I decide it wouldn't hurt to give them a call, just to check on how she's doing. When Gil told Nick, Greg and Warwick as well as our team-members-by-extension, Jim and Sofia, what was going on with Sara he strongly advised everyone to leave her be to begin her twelve-step. 'Let her contact us' he said. I think he knew when he said that though that I wasn't going to listen, and I don't think he minded or he probably would have given me one of his reprimanding Grissom looks and said in his best school-teacher voice 'that means you too, Catherine.'

NA and AA have certain things in common, twelve-step being one of them. For me, a girl with a boyfriend and friends, it was hard enough getting in touch and asking for their support and in some cases their forgiveness. I don't know if Sara has those things, and coupled with the knowledge of how stubborn she can be I don't want her to end up going through this alone because neither she nor the team made the effort to reach out. That's kind of what got us here in the first place.

I smirk as I realize that this level of compassion from me would probably shock some people. They know I have emotions, but even with those I am very controlled, calculating which I can afford to let out and how much I can let go. I'm sure I come off as a bitch a lot of the time, but I think the working persona that I've constructed helps me get the job done. The trick is not to let that persona become so disparate from the real me that I don't know who I am any more, which was a major factor in my drug addiction.

A quick phone call to Barton House, the clinic where Sara Sidle is currently residing, confirms that she's still locked down in 'detox,' and won't be able to receive any phone calls or letters until she's feeling a bit better. Still, the nurse tells me she's doing ok, _surviving_ I think is the word she uses, although understandably she's pretty sick at the moment. You can't put your internal organs through the ringer for god knows how long and then expect them just to pick back up again when you stop with the poison.

"Are you allowed to give her messages?" I ask.

"It depends on what they are,' says the nurse "and whether I think she's in a state where she can hear them."

"Well, if you think she is, can you please tell her… umm," I stumble here as I try and decide exactly what I want Sara to be told. "Tell her that Catherine called, and that I wish her all the best." Geez Willows, that sucks, I admonish myself. Too formal. "Wait… actually tell her I'm thinking of her and I hope to see her soon."

"Ok, I'll try" says the nurse, and I hang up shortly thereafter.

Making my way through the empty house I turn the shower on full in my en-suite and walk back into the bedroom to strip off. The water pressure feels wonderful against my skin, and the slightly-hotter-than-warm temperature immediately relaxes me, washing away thoughts of the case I've just closed, and any temporary derailment I may have felt trying to think of what to say to Sara. After a while I become aware of different kinds of thoughts and impulses, which I haven't really had the time or the inclination to take care of over the last few days. I bask under the spray of the shower as I realize I'm completely alone in the house. Using the shower head against myself I come to a very satisfying climax, while blurry, faceless erotic images dance in my head.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

_Day Five – Sara._

I'm flipping channels again as I stretch out on the bed of my new room. That's right; I said my_ new _room. My doctor decided I was well enough to be more than a hundred yards from the nurses' station yesterday evening, and although really I'm only a few doors down from where I was there is no glass 'observation' window in this room. There's no lock either, but at least no one can just lift the blinds and see what I'm up to. I just have a desk, a chair, a bed, and a TV. And it feels blissful.

I'm chilling out a bit before I go and attempt dinner – my appetite's still not what it used to be. Today was my first day in group. Really, I wanted to wait a while before starting, and practically begged the nurses to let me do as much, but they seemed to know that I'd put group therapy off forever if I could, and insisted I get up as per my eight o'clock wake-up call, and follow the program with the other patients.

'Other patients' refers to different things. Sometimes I'm in group with just the addicts, although this group is made up of both inpatients like myself, and day-patients who used to be inpatients but made enough of a significant improvement so as they could leave this place. At other times the addictions program merges with the program for the depressives, and we all work together.

My first group of the day was behavioral therapy; a two-hour-long attempt to try and work out what we think about ourselves, why we think it, and what we can do to change it. It was pretty horrific. I kept my mouth shut for an hour and forty minutes, aided by an extremely highly-strung depressive who was in the midst of changing medication and spent a great deal of the session weeping, much to my embarrassment. I felt really uncomfortable for her, convinced that I would never let myself feel like that in a group situation.

Just when I thought I'd gotten away with it, the therapist turned to me. "Sara, I just wanted to spend the last few minutes getting to know you a bit. Why are you here?" I explained that I had a problem with alcohol, although I wasn't ready to use the word alcoholic, and that my psychiatrists thought I might be suffering from depression also, which was what drove me to drink. Even saying that much was no walk in the park, but it was do-able. Feeling a little better, I was completely thrown when the therapist asked me what I thought of myself. I mean, how do you answer that? For one thing, it's something that I've actively avoided exploring for a very long time, and for another, I don't feel any fixed way about myself; I feel lots of different ways. Sometimes I look in the mirror and see a toned stomach and long legs, and other times I see an awkward, gangly woman with little to no sense of style. Sometimes I feel entirely proud of my academic prowess and ability to solve cases, and sometimes I feel like a dunce.

I blinked at her a few times, and she used my hesitation as an opportunity to make suggestions based on what the others had been saying before me. Was I someone who thought I was stupid? Did I think I was unworthy? Did I think there was something _bad_ about me? I immediately thought of my guilty worries about the presence of a murder gene, and how sometimes I wondered if I became a CSI purely to atone for what my mother did to my father, solving crimes to make up for the one she committed. Sensing that she had noticed my disappearance into the past, she seemed to be prepared to wait forever for my answer. Looking around me, and then closing my eyes so tightly that the black behind them turned red, I said "I sometimes worry that there's something deficient about me. That I'm an inherently bad person."

And I do.

Well of course, the therapist seemed pleased at getting me to say this and was determined to run away with it, asking me if I truly believe that anyone can be all bad. I told her I'm not sure, that I scare myself sometimes, and that's when it happened.

She looked around the room and said "should we all be wearing protective gear in here?" Her smile let me know she was making some sort of joke. It wasn't funny though.

"No."

"But come on Sara, you're bad! There's something wrong with you. By your account, we should all be ducking and covering, shouldn't we?" she exclaimed, and the worst part, the really, really worst part, is that I knew what she was doing. She was trying to show me that of course I'm not a bad person, that I don't want to hurt anyone in the room, do I, so I _can't_ be the monster that I'm afraid I could become. I think she meant it reassure me, but in that moment her jokey tones seemed mocking, and it felt like she was laughing at me. Humiliating me over a thought that is so fearful and so scary to me, and it reminded me of the contemptuous laughter my mother used to use towards me. My mom always seemed to be sneering at me, showing me up if others were there and mocking me on her own if they weren't.

The therapist snapped something inside me, and before I knew it was happening there were tears pouring out of my eyes and dripping down my shirt.

My hand was wrapped around my wrist, and I was digging; digging my fingernails into the flesh skin near my pulse point as hard and as deep as I can get them, and still I couldn't feel it. I pushed, and I cried like I haven't in years, until the woman next to me pulled my hand from my wrist and smoothed the skin where I'd forced my nail past the flesh.

"What just happened there, Sara?" she asked. "Something I said obviously got to you there, what was it?"

I just sat and stared at her, tears still falling down my face like droplets of betrayal, humiliating me even more. "Nothing" I said evenly, shaking my head. Before I could even think about saying more to her, the walls had gone back up and I was detached again, the way I want it to be.

Admittedly, when I got back to the security of my own room I lay down on the bed and had a cry to myself. How dare she speak to me like that! How dare the woman be so hard on me on my first day – no, my first _session_ – in group. A niggling voice in my head tells me that she wasn't trying to upset me so thoroughly, but I kick it down, pressing my knuckles into my eyelids and letting myself feel the anger instead.

This is what Catherine sometimes does to me, I think to myself. Obviously, it's to a far lesser extent but I always get the feeling that she's mocking me somehow; like she never thinks the way I do things is right or good enough. Almost everything about her intimidates me, starting with her flawless good looks and ending with her exasperated tone when she questions something I've done automatically, never imagining it might be the wrong thing to do, any more than I'd question putting milk on my cereal in the morning. If I ate breakfast that is.

Back in the present, I think about how strange it is that Catherine Willows, this superior who makes me think that she is just that, _superior_, called here last night to see how I was doing. I'm entirely grateful for once that I was safely behind the walls of the fish tank, where I couldn't have spoken to Catherine even if I'd wanted to, which I didn't. If she calls again I might not be so lucky, and I just can't think what we would have to say to each other. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the woman's evil or anything. Like I said before, I know she has a large capacity to care for human beings. It's just that none of those human beings has ever been me, and I feel a little thrown by what would appear to be her about-turn towards me.

'Suck it up while it lasts,' I think to myself, and turn the television off to go in search of dinner. No more thinking about Catherine right now, I tell myself.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

_Day Five – Catherine._

I deliberately stayed up late Friday night so that my sleep schedule's not too messed up for work tonight. Lindsey was excited to see me at the school gates, and obviously having me around to make her favourite dinner, buy ice cream and watch movies with was a novelty at first, as she stayed up with me for a while on the couch, even letting me put my arm around her shoulder and pull her head to my chest. My blonde angel, I thought, kissing the top of her forehead. Fruitless as I know it is, I couldn't help but ask whichever spirit or being or whatever to please let her stay that way forever.

After our second movie, however, Lindsey said she was tired and took herself off to bed; although I suspect that was maybe her way of letting her mom down gently so she could go and talk to her friends online. I smile at my daughter's diplomacy and wonder where she got it from. She seemed so angry six months ago that this cheery, tactful girl in front of me is a welcome vision, and I can't help but wonder if it's having her spend more time with my sister Nancy and her son Jeremy, and less with my mom. I have also been trying my hardest to be super-mom lately, a role I'm aware I fall far short of nine times out of ten. Still, even when I don't quite make it home on time or bring the right kind of clothes home for her from the mall, I do my best to let her know that I'm trying my hardest.

In return, I'm somewhat grudgingly cutting her a little bit of slack; today, for example, I took her to the mall to pick out some new clothes, and then left her to go meet her friends while I did my own thing, promising to come back and get them all and take them to Jennifer's house for their sleepover tonight. Two mom points for me, I think to myself.

So in this rare moment of alone-time, I'm sipping a hot latte with my purchases beside me. It's been ages since I spent any of my money directly on myself in a way that hasn't involved a car or a mortgage payment, so today I've gone in for some retail therapy. I mentally catalogue the things I've bought: a new pair of jeans – for some unknown but very welcome reason I've been getting skinnier just lately; maybe it was worrying about Lindsey through her 'difficult' patch or maybe I've just been forgetting to eat; also a new black dress which was on sale – it's quite sheer and 50s and personally I think it clings in all the right places, but then I really wouldn't know about that. I don't really know why I bought it even; I guess it goes without saying that I don't get to go to many cocktail parties these days. If I didn't work the night shift I suppose I could be something of a social butterfly: on Sam Braun's invite list but for all the wrong reasons. Or maybe they're the right reasons, I don't know. Thinking about Sam confuses me, and so I stop and tick over what else I bought. Some ordinary things like makeup and cosmetics, and then some not-so-ordinary ones like the black silk lingerie I bought. Now that really is something that I don't think anyone's going to see any time soon, but then you never do know. Mostly I guess I bought the sheer bra and panties for me; in a strange way wearing them under my work clothes or overalls reminds me that I'm a woman, and reminds me of my sexuality.

Sexuality has always been important to me, and I don't mean in the gay or straight sense. I'll be the first to admit that I was a born flirt, but then it goes with the territory of being a stripper, a professional tease, doesn't it? Or maybe it's my flirting that made me such a good stripper rather than the other way around. Anyway, flirting for me is second nature; it's something fun that I do to pass the time, and to keep myself from getting so sexually frustrated that I end up taking hour-long showers every night, and I'm not talking about cold ones to calm me down. I mean steamy, slippery, hot ones like the one I had last night.

A slight blush graces my cheeks but I'm not really embarrassed. Sometimes I need an ego boost, and I've long since recognised that a lot of my self-esteem is tied into the way I feel about my body, and about sex. I know it's not entirely healthy, but there it is; when I'm in the lab with my hair pulled back and my – for god's sake – reading glasses perched on the bridge of my nose, I am all too aware of the fact that I'm getting older, and to be honest it scares the hell out of me. So if ten minutes later Warwick or Greg is throwing an innuendo at me, or being jokingly suggestive, then no, I'm not going to stop them and yes, I'll give them something back. However, I'd like to think I'd never go so far as to sleep with someone as inappropriate as either of those two choices would be.

I think that for as long as I've been an adult, I've had a high sex drive. I'm not going to lie and say that physical attraction isn't important to me in a partner; it is, so when I'm with someone, and I fancy the absolute pants off of them, then of course I'm going to want to have sex. A lot. I don't always want to be the one to initiate it though: as much as I may embrace my dominant side it's amazing how turned on I get when I'm being submissive, too. I guess as someone dominant in the workplace, every so often I need some boundaries to stop me getting too cocky. Someone to take control, hold me down and tell me what they want me to do. Really then, I need someone with about an equal sex drive as me, who also likes being a switch.

The blush rises further as I consider this, and think about the last thing I bought on my shopping trip; something that I'm looking forward to trying out the next time I get home from work with an itch I need to scratch before I can sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

_Day Five – Sara._

You know what they say about not tempting fate? Well, I really should think about that more often before I go and have thoughts like 'I'm so glad I wasn't allowed to talk when Catherine called.' Because now I've just picked up the phone in my bedroom to have a nurse tell me that said woman is on the line right now.

I can hear the click of the nurse putting the phone down on the line. "Hello?" I ask tentatively.

"Hi Sara." She pauses and I bet and I can predict the next words out of her mouth. "We've missed you."

Ok, that was not what I expected her to say. I was waiting for the customary 'how are you?' to which the only acceptable answer, really, is 'fine.' "Uh, what?" I question, slightly thrown.

"We've missed you," she says again, as if choosing to believe that I am deaf rather than questioning the meaning behind her statement.

"No, I heard you."

"Oh. Well, we do. All the team wish you well, and I'm sure if they knew I was calling you they'd have all kinds of messages for me to relay. As it is, Grissom told us all to leave you alone for a while. But since when did I listen to authority?" Catherine says lightly.

"Never" I say with a smirk.

Catherine seems to know that I'm joking rather than being obstinate, as she continues "so how's the food?"

I laugh out loud a little at her random line of questioning. "Actually I haven't had that much of it yet."

"Still feeling the sickness?" What does Catherine know about detox?

"Yeah, a bit." I admit. "Getting better though." Well, I can't have the mighty Ms. Willows thinking I'm _too_ weak, can I?

She sighs then. Not an exasperated sigh, more like she's letting go of a nervous breath she's been holding. I wonder if she was as worried about making this phone call as I was about receiving it. I wonder if Grissom put her up to this. "Did Griss make you call me?" I ask suddenly. That would be just his style; he's a good CSI but when it comes to people he prefers to gather all the evidence without having to ask the difficult questions.

"No!" Catherine says quickly. "Sara, Gil didn't want any of us to call you."

"So why did you? And don't say it was because you don't obey authority."

"Well, I don't. Not usually, anyway" Catherine replies.

I don't ponder her words too closely as I say "so you're calling me to annoy Gil?"

"No!" She protests again, and when she sighs this time it is in frustration. "I called because I wanted to check you were ok, and not, before you start getting defensive with me, because I think you can't cope in rehab…"

I can't cope in rehab. But she doesn't need to know that.

"…but because not talking hasn't got the team very far, has it? It's all very well being stubborn, or thinking that we're giving each other space for the right reasons, but in the end it's still silence, lack of communication, lack of understanding, whatever you want to call it."

I have to admit to being a little taken about at her words. "When did you get smart?" I ask, joking once more.

I almost hear her smile as she answers "when I realised your intelligence might give me a run for my money. I've been studying extra hard since."

"Think it's working?" I ask, much happier to continue along this light-hearted line than get into another pissing contest.

"Well, which one of us is in rehab?" She retorts cheekily. I can't believe she just said that, but I like her that little bit more because she did.

I get the feeling that kid gloves aren't going to help me build up the strength I need to beat this, and for once I'm glad I can count on Catherine not to wear them.

"Ouch."

"I know, but you did walk into that one a bit," she says "and I never did learn to keep my mouth shut. Anyway, I'd better head out for the night," she says, and I realise that her last statement isn't true: she's tactful enough not to point out that she's on her way to work, because she knows I'll feel frustrated about not being there. "Sara," she continues "I'd like to come and see you. Lindsey and I both would, though I understand if you're not up to visitors, particularly pint-sized ones."

"Doesn't that cover both of the Willows women?" I ask.

"Watch it Sidle. I'm not that much shorter than you."

"I know, I just think of my height as a physical reminder of my superior intelligence over you" I reply.

"You want to answer the question so I don't get my ass kicked for being late?" she inquires.

"Maybe I like the thought of you getting torn a new one. Doesn't happen often." I sense that if we carry on much longer I might cross the line a little bit, and contrary to what most would believe, I don't want that. "I'm allowed visitors from next weekend onwards. Saturday afternoons and Sundays are best, though weeknights are ok if you have the time off."

"Saturday afternoon then" she says.

I'm slightly taken aback by her suggestion that she comes to see me at the first possible opportunity, so I just say "okay, see you then" and hang up the phone, without asking her if she's bringing Lindsey, or if she knows where this place is.

Still, when I hang up and lay down on my bed I can't help but replay the conversation in my head. I feel a bit lighter than I did before she called, and I realise that there's a smile gracing my features for the first time in a long while.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

_Day Five – Catherine._

Despite joking to Sara that she was going to make me late, I still manage to arrive at Headquarters forty five minutes early, which is about as much of a miracle as Grissom actually realising that it's time for shift to start. I used to resent Sara for the fact that she could stay behind after shift stacking up hours' worth of overtime and hundreds of brownie points with the boss as well as getting into work ridiculously early before the start of the next working 'day.' Part of me used to think that she did it on purpose to show the rest of us up; prove how much more committed to being a CSI she was than anyone else; especially me, since she knew I had a major obligation in the form of Lindsey and couldn't possibly afford to sacrifice any more of the scant quality time I already had with my daughter.

Grissom was a good friend of mine, sure, and had given me the leg-up I needed to get started in my career after spending what felt like an age training in forensics during the day and taking my clothes off at night. But how much would that friendship count for with Sara around; the straight-A student from Harvard who also happened to be younger than me, a fact which clearly showed in her looks. She was also unattached, though it quickly became clear that she wasn't without baggage, and she began to move up the ranks of CSI so quickly that she made me fear for my chances of becoming a supervisor.

Even when Ecklie finally did recognise my potential and gave me the position I had so badly craved - albeit without the hours I wanted or the whole team sticking together - I still felt vulnerable. Not only had Nick made it perfectly clear he wasn't happy working for me instead of Grissom, but I was still afraid that Sofia would decide to apply for a transfer back into CSI, or Sara would continue with her slave-to-the-wage attitude and eventually earn enough credibility in management's eyes for them to consider her for promotion. I felt scrutinised; to be honest I _feel_ scrutinised even now, as if all eyes are on my waiting for a slip-up. There was that business with Novak, then my camera getting stolen at a crime scene, as well as my ongoing issues with my rebellious teenage daughter. Each time these things happened I kicked myself for fucking up, even though in each case there was nothing I could really do after the fact to make things right. It all felt so unfair, and I felt like those scrutinising eyes were brimming over with 'I told you so'.

At what point did those eyes become Sara's, I ask myself. I guess because she was the person I was the least friendly with on the CSI team. When we were reunited after the horrific ordeal that Nick was put through I was petrified that Ecklie would demote me from my supervisory role. I've seen it happen to Sofia, and as much as the two us of weren't getting on at the time I couldn't help but recognise the massive injustice that had been done to her. Would it happen to me too?

I can't remember when I came up with my new defence strategy. All I know is at some point I decided that if I wanted to keep from slipping up I had to concentrate on that scrutiny; I had to feel it on my back all the time, burning holes into me so that I was constantly aware of it. I guess that as my biggest critic, Sara became the scapegoat for those feelings; the face that featured those eyes.

God, I think, sitting in my reclining office chair with my feet proper up on my desk, how wrong was I to do that? Maybe in some ways Sara and I are a lot alike. We both ending up driving our ambition for the wrong reasons: because we felt scrutinised, because we put too much emphasis on the mistakes we made and were too quick to blame ourselves for them. Sara pushed herself too far and ended up at the bottom of a bottle.

But what happened to me?

Clearly I didn't take such drastic measures, but looking back now I can see that my behaviour was bordering on self-destructive too. I stopped having _fun_; stopped making time to go out with the guys after shift or on rare nights off, and more than that for a while there I stopped being there for my daughter; pulling away from her because, as I'm coming to realise more and more, I was aware of how much I'd let her down already, and scared of how much more I could let her down in the future. I acted like a coward, and that's not like me.

Accepting Sam as my father and as my mother's part-time lover was another difficult situation; if I'm completely honest it still _is_ a difficult situation. My sister Nancy talks about how we lucky we are that mum chose 'dad' instead of marrying Sam, and I just don't know how to tell her that actually Sam did father me, and technically we're only half sisters.

Moping has never been my style, so much of me believes wholeheartedly in my whole 'don't regret, don't look back' concept that I spout off every now and then. It's not always that simple though, and I think that Sara's going to rehab has acted as an indirect admission that we all need help sometimes, making us all question how stable things really are for each of us. Warwick was in here just yesterday talking about how he had checked in with his sponsor for the first time in three years, and how because of that conversation he'd been asked to chair a Gambling Anonymous meeting. He was worried he wasn't good enough, which of course anyone who knows him knows that he is. But it's one thing recognising something about your friends, family or workmates, and quite another recognising things about yourself.

It helps to have people around you to reassure you though, even if you can't find it within yourself to one hundred percent accept what they're telling you. I wonder if Sara ever had anyone to try and reassure her, or if we all thought she didn't need it because we assumed that she's emotionally closed-off; somehow stronger and more able to swallow down her pain. I smile ironically as I realise that I guess she was swallowing it down, just in hard liquor form.

I frown and rub my temples. A headache this early on in the shift is a really bad sign. I hear a knock at my door and looking through the transparent glass of my office walls I see Greg waiting outside. He doesn't give me his usual crazy wave or worse, his 'walking down invisible stairs' impression. I signal for him to come in and when he does I wave him to the sit in front of my desk. "Hi Greg. What brings you here?" I ask.

"Sara" is his only reply.

Immediately I remove my feet from my desk and sit up very straight. "Did something happen?"

"No! No, nothing like that" he says, turning slightly red. At my glare he turns redder and sheepishly says "sorry."

"Okay… please don't scare me like that this early into the working day. Or, actually, ever" I chide him. I wait for him to continue with whatever it was he came here to say, but when he doesn't I prompt "Sara…?"

"You've spoken to her, right Cath?"

I blink at him. Stalling for time, I ask "what makes you think that?"

He gives me this look then that is so typically Greg. Like I'm his old mom and he's my teenage son and I've just tried to tell him that Santa Claus does exist. He's utterly incredulous. "Come on. Spill."

I say nothing.

"If you admit it then hypothetically I might tell you that I talked to her too" he continues.

"You did?" I ask immediately.

"How much trouble would I be in if I said no right now?"

"Let's put it this way Greggo. I know how to leave no evidence behind." I tell him.

He smiles then, and says "well it's probably a good job that I have actually spoken to her then."

I warn him "you know, if Grissom finds out he won't be happy with you. Pissing off the boss this early isn't a smart move."

He snorts. "Even if you were a CSI 1 like me you still would've called her, whatever Grissom said."

I can't help but smile at how well he has me pegged. I hold my hands up in mock-defeat "Okay, you got me. Now did you come here to compare notes on flouting Grissom's authority or did you have something else to say?"

"Uh, well I only got to talk to her for like five minutes before she had to go and eat. But she sounded weird, yunno?"

"Rehab's no picnic" I tell him. He gives me a slightly strange look at this but doesn't ask how exactly I know this.

"Right" he says, "but she just seemed so..." he pauses while he searches for the right word, I presume, "…un-Sara." He looks down at my desk as he says "she sounded so far away. And before you get all sarcastic on me, I mean far away emotionally."

I sigh. He's still looking down at my desk, so I reach across and put my hand on top of his. "I wasn't going to tease. Don't you think I realise that this" I gesture around me to indicate the current situation with Sara and the team "is more important than any of that bullshit?"

He looks up into my eyes at that. "Sorry Cath, I don't mean to be tetchy. Just a little down I guess."

"I know" I tell him, keeping a hold of his hand "but if it makes you feel any better she sounded okay when she spoke to me. Not brilliant, not even halfway there really, but okay."

He nods at that "I guess that'll have to be enough for now. I mean, she said she doesn't want any visitors yet."

I neglect to tell Greg that I'm visiting Sara on Saturday, but I do have the good grace to feel a little guilty about it. It gives me food for thought though: why on earth would Sara agree to see me and not Greg? He seems to be the person she's closest to these days. I mentally shrug. Maybe his closeness is the issue. That's certainly something Sara and I don't have on a personal level. Does that make it easier for her to spend time with me? Because she thinks it'll be superficial?

Is it as terrible that despite this a part of me is pleased she said yes to my visit but refuses to see anyone else?

After a little more small talk Greg leaves me office, leaving me to continue pondering the situation. Going around and around in circles over why no-one, not even Greg, her closest team-mate, knew that this was all kicking off; why she'd let Lindsey and I come and see her but not me. Theorising over various possibilities is driving me mad, I decide after a little while.

From now on, screw assumptions.


	9. Chapter 9

9.

_Day Six – Sara._

I sleep better than I have yet in this place, although I suppose that's not really surprising seeing as how I'm getting healthier every day. The quieter the brass band in my head decides to play, the more sleep I can get.

Breakfast is a simple piece of fruit, eaten simply to assuage the nursing staff, who seem to think that anyone who eats less than three full meals a day has an eating disorder. I'd like to make them work graveyard for a week and then see if they feel like breakfast at the end of shift. After that I have more behavioural therapy, but thankfully today it's with a different psych. A guy one to be precise, whose name is Thomas. He has nice Irish lilt to his voice, which goes some way towards making me feel comfortable in the room after yesterday's fiasco.

This is one of the groups where addicts and depressives are merged, which is good because when Thomas goes around the circle asking each of us whether or not we want some time to speak in the session, I can say no far less conspicuously. We work from an article this time, and reading through it I realise that it's actually quite interesting. According to this psychologist, Young, there are twelve Early Maladaptive Schemas that the brain can adopt. These are persuasive themes that originate in early childhood, as a consequence of our experiences. Unsurprisingly, big parts of them involve our parents. You can have one or more of these defective core beliefs, but, he tells us, 'the good news is you can't have all twelve, because some of them contradict one another.'

Great, I think. So I can be crazy in six or seven ways, but not in twelve. That makes me feel a _lot_ better.

Sarcasm aside for now, he gets people to read out the origins and characteristics of each one. I don't volunteer to read, obviously, but I do listen intently, and find myself identifying with some of what's being said, against my better judgement. The first schema that hits home is one that is called 'Abandonment and Instability.' Go figure.

Reading through the information, I recognise parts of myself in the words. "The client believes that others will not be able to provide emotional support, connections or protection on an ongoing basis because one or both parents may have been emotionally unstable and therefore unpredictable or unreliable," a member of the group reads. I realise with a scowl that this applies to me; I really resent being so textbook predictable, but then I guess the reason that anyone listens to these theories is that they do make some kind of sense.

Emotionally unstable is kind of a given when you consider my mother and the fact that she's locked up in prison, but my father was unstable in his own way too, and was definitely unpredictable. I wasn't Dave Pelzer, consistently beaten, locked up and abused. For the first few years of my life I was 'Daddy's Little Princess;' the days when they still ran the B & B in Tamales Bay and got high after the guests had gone to bed. Although I grew up to feel disdain for the hippy lifestyle my parents' had back then, I guess how bad things got after those times makes me look back on them with rose-tinted glasses. I think they've definitely influenced me in their own little ways; a lot of my wacky jewellery, for example, is a subconscious throw-back to an easier time I hardly remember.

I know my parents hated giving up the B & B, and that they only did it so they could get me into a good school. I think both of them resented me for that in some way, although my mom at least had the good grace to feel bad for her irrationality. It always saddens me when I have to work a case involving what clearly used be a well-functioning family, who have somehow, slowly but surely, spiralled out of control into something terrible. That's how it was with me. In a way, I would almost dare to argue that it's worse for kids brought up in that environment than for the ones who are consistently broken down; they at least know their place and are treated the same way every day, however bad that may be. But then I guess I'm a little biased; at least I get to have _some_ fond memories. I guess in the end it's not about one way of ruining a child being worse than another: the awful part is that these sick things happen in the first place.

As I said, with my mother and father, I can trace the problems back to selling the Bed and Breakfast; the two things happened at around the same time, so even if they weren't cause and effect of one another, I think I'll always see them that way. It started off 'innocently' enough; fights between my parents led to fights with me. My mother started to bully me after my father started bullying her, I guess. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, and try and push the intrusive thoughts out of my head. I hate thinking of myself as a victim, but more than that I hate thinking of my mother as a victim, because it means that some of my anger dies away a little, and anger is what has sustained me for so many years, after things got so much worse than those early discomforts. I suppose in the end I had to start supplementing the anger with alcohol; feeding it because anger alone couldn't keep my thoughts closed to me anymore – they had begun to intrude at the most inappropriate times, like at work. It got to the point where Grissom would hand me a domestic abuse assignment, and I would just know that after shift I'd end up passed out on my bed with an empty JD bottle next to me.

I physically shake my head; as if in doing so I can shake my dark thoughts out of it, and turn my attention back to the flip-chart Thomas is scribbling on. I see that while I've been inside my head, we've finished talking about the first schema and are about to move on to the next. "Ok everyone, now we're going to talk about the second Maladaptive Schema – Abuse and Mistrust."

I can't help the deep sigh that escapes me as I roll my eyes to the heavens and think that someone up there must hate me. So much for keeping dark thoughts away.


	10. Chapter 10

10.

_Day Seven – Catherine_.

"Lindsey!" I holler up the stairs at my 'beautiful angel,' who is currently blaring obnoxious pop music so loudly from her room that I can hear it in the kitchen, where I am procrastinating before I have to go to work, something I really don't feel like doing tonight. I wasn't just trying to flatter Sara – the atmosphere is that little bit darker without her there, and I don't know about the others but whenever I walk past the glass-fronted labs, I keep expecting to see her in there hunched over a table, chewing her lip as she examines whatever piece of evidence she's desperately trying to make sense of. She's part of our team, our family, and the strain of one of us being in a bad way is showing in everyone.

"Mom? Did you say something?" Lindsey yells down the stairs, without lowering her music.

"It's almost time to go to Nancy's sweetie. Do you have your stuff ready?" I choose to ignore the issue of her obnoxiously loud lollipop music. That's another mom point for me, right?

"Yeah" she huffs, and I can tell she's rolling her eyes right now.

I walk up the stairs to her room, and knock on her door, waiting patiently for her to open it. I would hate it when my mom would just barge in on me without knocking, as she so frequently did. Actually now that I think about it, she still does it whenever she gets the opportunity. Typical mom.

I hear Lindsey's music stop and my ears feel happier. She pulls open the door and instead of the frown I'd come to expect she gives me a small smile. I'm still getting used to this lighter Lindsey. "I'm sorry sweetie. I'd much rather be spending the evening with you, at home" I tell her, coming into her room and sitting on her bed.

She sighs. "Really?" She sounds as if this is the last thing she would believe.

"Of course baby" I say, unable to stop the grin that forms as she wrinkles her nose at the nickname. I pick up one of her stuffed animals – a purple unicorn that I bought her years ago - and start fiddling with it while I try and talk to my little girl. "Linds, I'm sorry if I haven't let you know this enough, but you are the most important person in my life. Everything I do: working these hours, doing overtime; is so I can spend as much time as possible with you while making as much money as possible for our future."

"I'd rather have you at home and not have any money" she says to me quietly.

I smile at her naivety. "It might seem like that, but if I didn't do my job, we wouldn't be living in this house. You wouldn't have this bedroom and all the things in it, and you wouldn't be looking forward to going to college when you're older." It's her turn to smile a little at this and I continue, "Don't get me wrong, I like my job, and I like providing for you and me; I'm _happy_ to do it. That's what mothers do for their daughters: give them their best." Fathers should of course come into play here too, but even if Eddie hadn't died I don't think he would have been too concerned with providing Lindsey with security; he certainly never gave me any. I shiver, as ghosts of arguments and occasional violence run through my mind.

Lindsey's looking at me oddly, like she wants to believe that I would give her the world if only I could but has seen too much evidence to the contrary, and I hate myself just a little that my little girl has ever doubted my love for her. All efforts must be doubled, I tell myself. Negative five mom points. "Linds, I. Love. You," I tell her nice and slow. "Have you ever thought differently?" The way her eyes sweep guilty around the room looking everywhere but at me tells me all I need to know and I pull her into a hug. Blinking back tears, I ask her "baby, when?"

She pulls back and looks me in the eyes, so much like my own, and shrugs her shoulders. I exhale slowly, and embark on the words every mother dreads having to say: the ones that acknowledge that they have fucked up royally with their child. "Sweetheart, I know you've had a really tough time since dad died, and even a bit before that. I know that we haven't been spending enough time together, and that's my fault. But I also know that somehow, things have been better between us for the last month or so. I haven't been all 'crazy mom' and you haven't been _quite_ so sullen at least."

"Oh mom, you're always crazy" she tells me, making us both smile. That's my girl, trying to look after us both.

"Watch it, cheeky" I say, obviously joking. "What I think is important is that things don't get that bad again. Which is why I think that it might be a good idea for you to go and see someone."

"What do you mean, see someone?" she asks, suspicious now.

"I think it might help us in the future if you had someone to talk to, who you could tell anything to without feeling guilty, like you shouldn't be thinking the things you are." Lindsey immediately screws her face up into a frown at my words. "Now, I know what you're probably going to say, but I really think if you give it a try just once, you might be surprised at how helpful it could be. And then you can decide whether or not you want to go for another session" I manage to get out.

"I don't know, mom…" Lindsey sighs again. She looks at me for a long time, and whatever she sees in my eyes - hope, pleading, sincerity, guilt – obviously strikes a cord, as she says "okay, I'll try it once."

"Really?" I ask, smiling big.

"Yeah. But if I hate it, I'm not going back, ok?"

"Deal" I tell her, pulling her down onto my lap for a hug. "Now, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about."

"I'm not going to school in a convent if that's what you're about to suggest."

I smirk at her. "Actually, it's about Sara. She's been having some problems lately…"

And so it begins.


	11. Chapter 11

11.

_Day Seven – Sara._

When I get called to go outside in the middle of group, I can't help but feel a bit like a naughty schoolgirl. I blush slightly as I bump into what feels like every chair in the room on my way out. Smooth, Sidle.

"Your Consultant's here to see you" the nurse tells me. "He's in the lounge."

"Uh, thanks." I manage. Although I see a doctor and many nurses each day, Consultants are a rarer breed, or maybe mine's just been letting me detox and settle in. He came by on my first day, obviously, and again three days ago. And clearly, now he's here again.

I enter the lounge, grateful that everyone else is shut away in group, unable to hear whatever might come to pass between us. I clear my throat.

"Hi, Sara" he says. He seems like a harmless enough guy from what little I've seen of him; greying, the wrong side of middle-aged. In a comforting way he reminds me of Doc Robbins.

"Hey" I say, stuffing my hands as tight as they'll go into my jean pockets and blowing errant hairs out of my eyes. Doctors make me nervous, what can I say.

"Sara, I wanted to talk to you today about medication" he continues, all business.

Ah, the 'M' word. Since I came in they've had me on all sorts; small-time drugs like Lunesta to help me sleep as well as bigger ones like Clonazepam, and even this thing called Ant-Abuse, which helps curb alcohol cravings and at the same time will make me instantly sick if I have even a drop of alcohol within a fortnight of taking it. Which, I might add, was amazing fun yesterday when I sprayed perfume on my wrists and ended up throwing up for three hours. I wonder what he wants to whack me out on now. I suppose I shouldn't complain, really, because without alcohol and exercise added to a distinct absence of self-pleasure the meds are the only thing to take the edge off these days. I briefly wonder if that means I'm 'cross-addicting,' and then want to kick myself for even thinking in psychobabble.

"Okay…" I say with caution.

"Well, we're doing everything we can to treat your alcohol abuse, and help you curb your cravings," he says, "but what I'm aware we haven't addressed yet is treating your depression."

Ah.

"Ah."

"I've been getting feedback from your group leaders, who mostly say that you're fairly detached during sessions, apart from Ellie, who says that you were quiet for most of her session, but then became rather emotional."

"Yeah, um, well, it was my first day in group. I guess I was getting used to it and everything…"

"Sara, you don't have to make excuses for getting upset. Lots of people do in group, whether they've been here a day or a month."

I never thought I'd be one of them.

"Are you telling me don't feel depressed? Low?" he asks me.

"Well," I stumble "I don't know, really. Mostly I just feel detached. Empty."

"That can be a sign of depression. Also sleeplessness, weight loss or gain, lethargy, feelings of hopelessness, despair," he lists. "Also experiencing stressful life events…"

"You do know what I do for a living, right?"

He smiles now. "Yes, but I also know that you're more than capable of doing it. Although it would be completely understandable if you had become burnt out from your career, I don't think that's it. Not all of it, anyway."

Stop being right, I think. "Well, nothing else has really happened recently. No relationships, no stressful social or family life. No deaths, save for those I deal with at work" I smile.

"Maybe that's the problem" my Doctor says, and I must look at him strangely then because he adds "not the death part. I mean the lack of a relationship, or a social life. Those things must make you feel isolated."

"I didn't say I was lacking a social life" I protest "I just said it wasn't a stressful one." I don't need to tell him that he's basically right; that most of my social interactions are with people from work. But they're not always _at_ work, in my defence. We all go for breakfast, or for beers – if it's been a bad shift sometimes a combination of the two. And Greg and I have been known to spend many-a-night in bars or hanging out and drinking at each others' apartments. I guess that's something which is going to have to change when I get out of here.

"Besides," he continues, ignoring my attitude "'stressful life events' doesn't necessarily have to refer to something that happened last week, or last month. It can be something from a long time ago."

I guess this guy didn't get his degree just from wearing a white coat and a stethoscope – not that he's wearing either of those things at the minute. He knows stuff.

He knows stuff, and he knows he knows stuff, because he looks at me and says "I think that your drinking, as so often happens, has come about as a result of how you feel inside. Although it is imperative that you continue twelve step…" I don't jump in to correct him here and point out that I haven't started twelve step yet, "…we need to address your other issues as well. Group is a good start, but I also want you to begin taking anti-depressants, and having one-on-one sessions with a psychologist or at least a counsellor."

I debate arguing with him, I really do, but in the end, I know he's partly right.

Except actually, I know he's _mostly_ right.

"Okay" I say, and he seems happy enough with my acquiescence, telling me that he'll write me up to start anti-depressants the next day. "Prozac?" I ask.

He shifts a little and says, "actually Sara, from all the clinical evidence and feedback that the nurses and therapists have given me, as well as what's in your file, I think it's gone a bit far for that. I'm starting you on Effexor, which should be more appropriate for you."

Great. Let's review what we've learned today: Sara Sidle is too crazy for Prozac, and her consultant has read her Child Services file.

She's also thinking in the third person a bit more than is normal.

Fabulous, I think, as I head back to my room, deciding not to go back and complete my morning group. This afternoon is Yoga, which I'm somewhat sceptical about. At least if I have to pretend to be some kind of stretching animal, I can get some room-respite for a while first.

Talking of respite, I am all too aware that today is also 'the-last-day-before-Catherine-and-potentially-her-child-visit-me.' I really hope our conversation in person can be like it was on the phone, but things never seem to be quite that simple for me or for Catherine. For me _and_ Catherine. The two of us combined is a sure recipe for complication, and most likely our congenial phone call was a fluke. If you throw darts enough times, you're eventually going to get the Bullseye, right?

It's not that we hate each other, or that we're bitter enemies; it's not even like we fight all _that_ often. I think it's just more noticeable, because no one else in the team bickers. For reasons unknown, together we're a mess. And I don't want to be a mess any more. Not with Catherine, not with anyone.

I smile, realising that however depressing this train of thought may be, I just discovered that I do actually want to get better.

And that's not something to be sniffed at.


	12. Chapter 12

12.

_Day Eight – Catherine._

"Lindsey?" I holler up the stairs, smirking at our repeat performance of the other day. The bubblegum pop is still needling its way into my brain, but I suppose I should be grateful that it's not the ear-shredding rock that Greg favours.

"What did you say Mom?" She yells back, and now I know I'm in Groundhog Day.

Smiling, I climb the stairs and knock on her door. Again, the music stops and she opens the door to me. The full-wattage smile she gives me is a vast improvement on the 'energy saving' version I received the other day. I had last night off, and spent it taking Lindsey for dinner and a Cirque show. She seems to be feeling better since our conversation the last time I sat down on her bed like this. As I reflect, I realise that _I'm_ feeling better too. It's not that I think sending Lindsey to a psychologist absolves me of all my parental guilt or responsibility, but I'm pleased to actually be doing something to help her, and that I finally seem to have been able to express how much I care.

"I was just wondering if you still want to come with me to see Sara."

She looks at me incredulously. "'Course I do. Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, I don't want you to get bored. It's likely just to be lots of coffee and talking."

"What on earth gave you the idea that I don't like talking?" She asks.

"You're right motor mouth, I should have known better," I tease. "It just might not be the kind of talk that you're interested in."

"Is this your trying-to-play-it-cool way of telling me to stay home?"

"Not at all. I just wanted to make sure you were up for this." Really, I want to make sure she's okay with seeing Sara in whatever state she may be in.

"I want to see Sara. I like her, mom, and I want to cheer her up" Lindsey explains.

"She might not be very easy to cheer up" I warn.

"I know, I know. You explained it all the other day; Sara's still in withdrawal, which is making her ill, as well as having emotional issues, which is making her feel bad." My little girl nods at me sagely.

"Linds, those aren't my words. Where'd you get that?" I ask. True, that is the gist of what I was trying to tell her, but I'm sure I did a lot more tiptoeing than that.

She shrugs "internet."

I chuckle. "You're a smart girl, Linds. And perhaps a bit more grown up than I care to admit."

She beams at being called grown up. I can't help but smile as I think that one say she'll be desperate to be thought of as younger than she is, like me. "So are we going?" She enquires.

I nod, and jump up from her bed. "Let's go get 'em."

We head for the car and jump in, both buckling up. Lindsey, apparently, is well past the stage where she has to be asked to do so; I wonder when that happened. Where was I? I ruffle her hair a little as she squirms, grimaces and then giggles. It feels so much better to interact with her like this instead of how we had been a couple of months ago. No mother wants to rage at their child, I think, and then my knowledge as a CSI kicks in and I correct myself: no mother should _want_ to rage at their child, and the ones who do aren't fit to wear the 'mom' name badge.

The drive is comfortably quiet as we flick between 'Lindsey music' and 'Catherine music.' Three songs each, that's our rule, but by the time we pull up to the clinic Lindsey's on her fifth and is sitting stock-still in her seat, grinning away to herself like she's getting away with something when in fact It's me who's letting her do it.

And there's also the fact that I'm slightly nervous about seeing Sara, which I'm more concerned with than changing the track on CD player.

I wonder how Sara's feeling today. A smart person probably would have called in advance, but whatever I may have bragged to her on the phone, smart is not always what I am. I mean, she's undoubtedly more on edge than me, probably still not feeling too great physically, and she's maybe even a little more nervous than I am. Given the timing, I can deduce that I must be her first visitor, and I wonder if I may have overstepped the mark in assuming this role. Did I give her enough of a chance to say no?

I mentally roll my eyes at myself. It's too late now, Willows, so just put one foot in front of the other and go see the woman.

Still, despite my nerves and deeper down than my worries over whether I'm intruding, I'm looking forward to seeing Sara Sidle, and that thought makes the painted smile on my face slowly become genuine.


	13. Chapter 13

13.

_Day Eight – Sara._

The telephone in my bedroom rings and I don't even have to answer it to know that it's the girl at the main reception, alerting me to Catherine's arrival. Instead, I roll off of my bed and make my way through the corridors to the front of the clinic. This takes me a minute or two, as the building is quite an old one: 'quaint' I guess you could say if you happened to be British. Or Grissom.

I enter through a door at the back of the room, while clearly Cath was expecting me to come through the same one she did, at the front. This buys me a couple of seconds before she notices me, and I use it to take a look at her. Her hair is immaculately straight with her fringe, as ever, sweeping sideways across her forehead. I like the fringe. I remember literally walking into her the day she got it done, too wrapped up in whatever case I was working to notice her speeding towards me. After the bump she'd continued walking in the direction she was originally headed, pausing to look back over her shoulder and drawl "watch yourself Sidle," smirking at me and tossing her hair to flick her fringe out of her eyes as she did so. I thought she looked sexy, which kick-started a three-night run of erotic dreams about my red-headed co-worker.

I'm looking at her in profile so I can only see one eye, but it's as blue as ever, not that I expected it to suddenly change colour in the last week. I like it best when there's a sparkle in Catherine's eyes, and luckily this happens often: when she's laughing, when she's teasing, and, the two incidences I see the most often, when she's just had a break-through in a case, or when she's really mad.

Lindsey is here with Catherine. Usually kids make me kind of nervous; I think mainly because I have nothing in common with the majority of them. The Malton kids, who lived in fear of being harmed by the very people who were supposed to be looking after them, I could sort of relate to. The little girl who had been their foster-sister, trying to get on with her homework as she was buffered around the system from foster home to foster home, I could definitely relate to. Kids like Lindsey, however, who have wonderful, loving mothers like Catherine and who don't need that kind of comfort or understanding leave me stumped, not knowing what to say to them.

Still, I'm glad she's here. At least Catherine can't grill me too hard with her daughter present.

I clear my throat and say "hi, Catherine."

"Sara," she says, surprised, turning towards me, and I am surprised to see the tiniest flicker of a sparkle in her eyes. "How are you today?" She asks, stepping towards me and putting her arms around my neck.

This unexpected move leaves me unable to say much but "fine, thanks." She pulls back from me with her eyebrow raised and we both giggle nervously at the absurdity of that statement. "Well, okay anyway."

"Good" she says, touching my elbow before stepping aside.

"Hey, Lindsey" I say, reacting on instinct and sinking to my knees and opening my arms.

She steps into them and throws her arms around me, and I realise how long it's been since anyone hugged me. Now, within the space of a minute, both Willows women have shown me affection.

"Hi Sara" she says, fixing me with a stare that is getting to look more and more like her mother's.

Then, in all sincerity, she says to me: "I'm sorry that you're an alcoholic."

I hear Cath gasp slightly behind me and I can't help the laugh that spills from my lips as a grin begins to split my face. I love this girl's frankness. "I'm sorry that I am too, Lindsey," I tell her, touching her cheek. I turn and see Cath mouth 'sorry' at me with a grimace. I just continue smiling and say "do you want the nickel tour?"

She clears her throat, grounding herself after her shock at Lindsey's words. "Sure."

I lead them both through the winding corridors, pointing out the dining room, the laundry, and the Occupational Therapy room where I "get to do all kinds of creative things." Lindsey's eyes go wide at this and I promise to try and find a nurse who can get us some access to it later. Then I push open the door to the gardens and lead them to one of the sets of wooden furniture, flanked by a large parasol.

We've barely sat down when Catherine asks "mind if I put this down?" gesturing to the oversized umbrella. "I love sitting in the sun" she shrugs, by way of explanation.

Filing this information away in the space in my head marked moments-when-Catherine-isn't-completely-guarded-around-me, and then deciding that I need to come up with a shorter name for that space, I jump up and wind down the parasol. "Do you guys want a drink?" I ask. "There's lemonade, Lindsey."

"Sure" she says.

"And I bet your mom wants coffee" I say, smirking at Linds.

"Oh, and you don't?" asks Catherine.

I hold my hands up "hey, I never said that. I would _never_ say that" I smile.

"I know you wouldn't" Catherine says, looking straight at me, and suddenly we're not kidding around anymore; she's showing me that she hasn't just been ignoring me for the last six years. She smiles at me, almost cautiously, and tucks her hair behind her ear.

I can't help but smile back at her, at the fact that she's here and by her own volition too. "I'll go and fix the drinks" I say, heading back inside towards the kitchen.

I use the time alone while I fix two coffees in polystyrene cups and an ice lemonade in a large beaker to have a short breather, despite the fact that Catherine's barely been here five minutes. It's strange and slightly overwhelming to see someone from the outside world after eight days in here with the same faces; faces, no less, of people who are going through the same sort of things that I'm going through, which makes them feel somehow 'safer' than those on the outside world. Add to that the fact that Catherine Willows is someone who automatically makes me leap on the defensive, but doing so is something that I know isn't going to help me get better. The problem is that I don't yet know what _is_ going to help me.

I remember what I learnt earlier in the week in Tai Chi about calming, abdominal breaths, and give it a try. I can't say that it necessarily does me much good, but at least it gives me another thirty seconds before I have to head back outside.

When I do head back to my visitors, I see Catherine leaning back with her arms outstretched to the sun, sitting across the table from Lindsey, who is chatting animatedly. Both are smiling, which makes me smile too. I know that their relationship has been somewhat complicated of late just from what I've picked up on around CSI headquarters, and so I'm glad that the tension between them seems to have been resolved. Admittedly, this is for my own selfish reasons too; the equation goes something like this: less Lindsey drama is equal to a less stressed Catherine, which means less arguing with Sara, which in turn should lead to a less stressed me.

It's not just that though, I realise.

As I've already indicated, I don't hate Catherine by any means and I wouldn't want her to be unhappy, despite what some of our colleagues may try and protest. I think our differences have become overstated within the team over time, as so often happens in smallish offices with close-knit groups of people. Maybe Catherine and I have even begun to believe the drama surrounding the two of us; I mean, it makes sense: if I'm paranoid that Catherine hates me and confess as much to, say, Greg, who's heard the office gossip and also believes that Catherine dislikes me, he's going to be unable to try and say otherwise, reinforcing my initial paranoia.

Sara Sidle, I think to myself, you definitely need to stop listening in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. That was far too healthy.

I set the drinks down and seat myself on Lindsey's side of the table. "Thanks, Sara" Cath says.

"No problem. I'm enjoying the coffee on tap; it's kind of like being at work."

"Except there's none of Greg's special-blend to steal" she comments.

"Exactly," I agree.

"I'm sure when Greg comes to see you he'll bring you some coffee of your very own." She must see my face contract a little at the thought of more visitors, because she reaches over the table towards where my hand would be if I didn't have both of them stuffed so tightly in the pockets of my pants. As it is, her arm kind of ends up hanging in limbo, and she awkwardly pulls it back into her lap. "Of course, the others don't know I'm here today other than Grissom, so no pressure."

I don't really want to address my newfound fear of my own friends, and so I just smile at her. Luckily, Lindsey chooses that moment to start telling me about her dancing classes, and her ability to reel off onto various tangents means that her speech requires my full concentration if I have any hope of keeping up with it.

I smile and nod in all the right places, thankful that Catherine managed to raise such a chatterbox.


	14. Chapter 14

14.

_Day Eight – Catherine._

Half-listening to my daughter tell Sara a story about dancing that I have heard her tell various people at least five times, I take the opportunity to subtly appraise my colleague. Her hair is hanging loose about her shoulders as so often is the case, apart from when she's caught up in testing a scientific theory or is bent over whichever car she's pulling apart with power tools, looking much more attractive than the greasy mechanics who service my Denali. She looks a little pale, but in contrast her eyes are ringed with dark shadows. Both of these things are to be expected, I guess. I can't exactly remember what I looked like when I first went into rehab, but I can imagine it wasn't half as good as Sara is managing to look now.

Eventually there is a lapse in conversation and I realise that both Lindsey and Sara are looking at me expectantly. "Mom?" my daughter asks.

"Sorry, what did you say sweetie? I was miles away."

"Nothing" Lindsey huffs, folding her arms.

Sara's small voice takes me entirely by surprise. "What were you thinking, Cath?"

"You look good." I tell her, smiling at her in a way which I hope conveys my sincerity. Her eyes are gentle when I say this, despite the shaking of the head she gives me in protest. "You do" I say. "Perhaps a little tired, a little pale, and," I look down her arms to what I can see of her waist, "maybe a little skinny, but good nonetheless. You seem to be doing well."

She just nods slightly and smiles, and I don't quite know whether that means she agrees with me that she is doing ok, or whether it means I should shut up and drop the subject.

Lindsey steps in and, with her sweetest smile, asks "so Sara, can I see the art room now?"

Sara chuckles. "Sure, Linds. Let's go to reception and I'll find someone to open it up for you."

This is soon achieved, and Lindsey is rushing around the room inspecting everything that the patients have been making. "What did you make, Sara?" she asks.

Sara seems vaguely embarrassed, and answers her quietly "uh, just this box thing so far."

"Can I see it?" I chuckle now at my daughter's stubbornness. I think between me and Eddie, she got twice the normal dose that a child inherits.

Sara mumbles something about it not really being finished, but nonetheless walks over to one of the cupboards and pulls out a box. It is painted in a beautiful pearlescent turquoise on the outside, with an azure blue on the inside. On the sides, Sara has painted delicate silver patterns. What is remarkable is the lid of the box, on which she has glued mosaic tiles and then painted a beautiful freehand seascape in ceramic paints. "Woah, cool!" exclaims Lindsey.

Sara kind of shrugs, and I add in "Sara that's incredible." Then, elbowing her slightly in the ribs: "I didn't know you were an artist."

"I'm not" she tells me, elbowing me back. "It's just a scene that I know well. You know, Lindsey, I used to live there."

"Really?" Lindsey grins. I imagine to a little girl who has lived just outside of Las Vegas City all her life, the thought of living near the Ocean is completely alien, and fascinating, to her.

"Yep. Tamales Bay, just outside of San Francisco."

"Cool," Lindsey exclaims. "I bet you went to the beach a whole lot when you were my age." Is that a pout I detect on my little girl's face?

"Actually, I lived somewhere else by the time I was your age" Sara says.

"Where?" I can't help but ask.

"Uh, Modesto, San Fran City; a few different places really." She smirks at me, "you want my blood type and white cell count as well, Willows?"

Oh, I see. We're playing _that_ game.

"It's ok, _Sidle_," I say, emphasising her surname, "I got that information years ago."

"Always nosey, huh?" she asks, still with a smirk on her face.

"Got to have my blackmailing material. And if you're only just realising that, your CSI skills aren't what I thought they were" I tell her.

"Oh, my CSI skills are just fine, thank you. However, it sounds like Grissom may have misjudged your people skills."

I can't help but take the opportunity that this statement presents to me. "You know, I think he did."

"Why's that?" She asks, brow wrinkling in confusion. I think she's trying to anticipate whatever rejoinder I'm about to come up with. Sorry to disappoint you, Sara Sidle…

"Because he didn't think I'd want to support you."

I think we both falter then, looking into each others' eyes, hers squinting in confusion and mine desperately trying to keep her with me, trying to tell her not to pull away, until Lindsey saves us.

"So what can I make?"

The tension in the moment eases, and Sara smiles down at my daughter, running her hands through blonde tresses. "What do you want to make, sweetheart?"

Lindsey pulls Sara away by the hand, leading her around the Occupational Therapy room while she debates the merits of all the different projects she could begin.

I could almost believe that the moment that just passed between us never happened. Almost. But when Sara looks back over her shoulder and gives me a curious smile, I know I'm finally starting to get somewhere, however small our progress may be.


	15. Chapter 15

15.

_Day Eight – Sara._

Forty-five minutes later, Lindsey is engrossed in trying to emulate my box-making skills. Clearly, what I consider to be amateur the kid is actually quite impressed with. I'm sitting next to her at the arts and crafts table, with Catherine across from us, the same as when we had our drinks outside earlier. It's funny how much easier it is to sit next to Lindsey rather than Catherine, despite my fear of the younger generation.

Just like it's much easier to look over Lindsey's shoulder at what she's doing rather than acknowledge the fact that out of the corner of my eye I can see Catherine looking at _me_. It's like a game at this point: every time I feel her eyes divert away from me, I sneak a look at her. Every time I sense that she's managed to go a whole seven seconds looking in another direction and is about to look back up at me, I duck my head back down to stare at Lindsey's artwork. Once or twice Catherine changes her method and that throws me, meaning that for split seconds we are looking straight at each other. It occurs to me that maybe Catherine's always been right, and scientific rationalisations alone aren't enough when people are involved; the human element distorts them every time.

I have to say, with Catherine Willows sitting opposite me studying me so intently, I feel a little like a science experiment myself.

Has she never seen an addict before, I wonder. Or is she marvelling at the fact that Sara Sidle has human weaknesses, and an abundance of them at that?

I let it slide for another ten minutes or so, by which point Lindsey is so engrossed in her project that she notices neither my prying eyes observing what she's doing, nor her mother's own set looking in my direction. Because I'm thinking about Catherine, I look up at her before I can stop myself. The human element screws the process up again, but this time it's my doing, my change in pattern that alters things, because she's still mid-stare. I swear I am literally about to drop my gaze to her daughter again when I notice she's mouthing something at me. What is she saying? I cock my head at her and frown questioningly, and she silently repeats herself.

"_Come here_."

She nods towards the far back of the room, and my heart starts to thump. Lindsey's presence is supposed to kill the potential of any one-on-one time between Catherine and I. Don't get me wrong, it's been perfectly pleasant to see her, and I'd go so far as to say it's _nice_ to see Lindsey, but I'm not sure I'm ready to hear what Catherine has to say to me that isn't appropriate for her to say in front of her daughter.

Still, I get up from the table, reluctant to disobey Catherine, or maybe I want to have to deal with as little tension as possible between the two of us whilst I'm in recovery. I make my way towards the back of the room, where Catherine is leaning with her back against another art table. I stand awkwardly in front of her, my crossed arms betraying my discomfort.

Lindsey Willows, who has been my shadow all afternoon, has seemingly betrayed me for arts and crafts, as she doesn't even glance at our change in position. Traitor.

"What's up Catherine?" I say, starting with a smile. Set off on the right foot and all that.

She returns the smile – good sign, I think to myself. "I just wanted to have five minutes on my own with you while Lindsey's wrapped up in her own world. I hope it's ok me bringing her here…"

"It's fine, Cath" I say, cutting her off in my nervous haste to find out where this conversation is really going.

"She's not bugging you too much?"

"Not at all," I smile, "actually it makes a nice change to have someone so impressed with something I've done. Kids are easily pleased, I guess."

"I think what you made is very impressive" she says.

I look at her sceptically "it's a box, Catherine. You don't have to go all schoolteacher on me, it's ok."

"No, it's more than that. It's something pretty that you managed to create despite the fact that you were most probably feeling crappy when you made it. I never made anything that good when…" she pauses, "well; I've never made anything that good."

What was she going to say, I wonder, but then decide to let it drop. If she doesn't want to go there, I'm not going to try and make her. Instead I say nothing.

"Besides, I'm often impressed with things that you've done" she continues.

Wait, what?

"You are?" I ask, dumbly.

She chuckles "of course I am. I have a confession to make…" here she pauses for dramatic emphasis, "I was lying about your CSI skills not being up to par. I know that they're very well attuned."

She smiles and I can't help but smile back.

"I miss you at work. Like I said on the phone, we all do. But I particularly miss working with you. We're a good partnership when we want to be."

I can only nod softly at this and say "Yeah. Yeah, we are."

"Two sharp women are better than one?" She grins.

"Absolutely" I say, and I can't help but grin back at her.

Ice broken, Catherine presses on. "So how are you really, Sara?"

I exhale slowly. Where to start?

"That good, huh?"

I smile wryly at her. "Yeah, that good."

"Hang on in there. It's going to get better. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that you're already feeling better than you were when you came in here, right?"

"I guess so" I tell her. "Physically yes. Emotionally…" I choose my words carefully "…I think I'm still settling into it all. You know, group therapy and all."

"Yeah" she nods, and then frowns. "Not easy, huh?"

"Definitely not" I admit, beginning to wonder why exactly I'm telling this to Catherine Willows.

"I think it's maybe because we're both of us strong, stubborn women. We refuse to accept that we're mere mortals, and that even people who spend their days fighting for justice can succumb to something as human as addiction. Throw in a bunch of perfect strangers and a therapist who expects open-book behaviour, well it's…"

"insane?" I ask.

"Pun intended?" she smirks.

"Oh definitely" I reply.

"Then yes. It's insane" she nods, as if that decides the matter.

"Where'd all this insight come from, Willows?"

She considers me for a moment, as if deciding her next move, and it is this action that suggests to me that there's maybe more to the story than empathy. She opens her mouth and I swear she's about to answer my question, when suddenly Lindsey pipes up "Sara? Come and see what I've done!"

Now that's timing.


	16. Chapter 16

16.

_Day Eight – Catherine._

Driving Lindsey and I back home, I reflect on the afternoon we've just spent. Apparently tired out from the exertions of painting, Lindsey is fast asleep in the back seat. Looking at her in the rear-view mirror I smile, and think how lovely it was to see her take pleasure in something as simple and creative as art; some days it seems like all she's interested in is boys and makeup. I hate to say it, but I was worried about how Sara would cope with Lindsey; purely because Sara's been the first to say in the past that she's not good with children. I should have known that, like so many other times in her life, Sara was putting herself down: she was great with my daughter, and Lindsey really responded to her. I frown as I wonder how well Lindsey will _respond_ to the child psychologist I made her an appointment with next week.

I'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

It's funny how much in life revolves around that simple rule. Take rehab, for example: one of the main mantras in NA, probably in AA too, is 'just for today.' Worry about not doing a line, or having a drink, or placing a bet or _whatever _it is that does it for you for the current day only, because you can worry about the next day tomorrow. If you can't manage a day, manage an hour. Manage minutes if you have to. Just hold on, and know that at some point things will click and you'll feel better. In other words: _wait and see_.

It's easy to think of things that might have been helpful for me to say to Sara now that I'm driving _away_ from rehab. 'Stupid, stupid,' I berate myself. Still, it's not like Sara and I had ample opportunities to talk to each other without little ears nearby, and as yet Lindsey doesn't know about my habit. I always figured I'd tell her 'when she was older,' but I guess that time is fast approaching. If I expect her to be open and honest with me, I know I'm going to have to be the same way with her, but it does scare me. As much as I would never admit this, would deny it if anyone was to ask me, I often don't feel good enough to be Lindsey's mother. I sometimes worry that if she finds out one more distasteful thing about me, she'll reject me completely. I think I could deal with anyone's scorn or judgement other than my daughter's. Bad enough that she overhead Eddie taunting me about my ex-profession in the midst of yet another heated argument that we shouldn't have had in front of her.

While I'm being honest though, it's not just the fact that Lindsey was in the room that stopped me from opening up to Sara like I'd deep-down hoped I would. She looked so guarded, dare I even say scared, and as much as Gil rates my people skills, when it comes to people like Sara I'm absolutely clueless. I could tell that the more smiles I gave her and the more serious questions I asked, the more uncomfortable she was becoming; in fact the only time she seemed to relax any was when we were joking around with one another. Maybe that's my way in, I think. Gaining her confidence through humour? I'm sceptical, but anything's worth a try. I smirk to myself, typical bull-headed Catherine Willows; once I set my mind to something I have to see it right to the end – not just that, I have to see it through until it's been completed to _my_ particular satisfaction.

Maybe it would be easier to give Sara a call, or write her a letter. That way I wouldn't have a chance to hesitate or to freeze like I would if I had to try and come out with anything deep and meaningful while we were face to face. More than that, Sara wouldn't have a chance to hesitate or freeze either. Once she'd read the letter, she could do with it what she wanted; burn it, throw it away, hell she could spit on it even, but she would still have read it. And maybe, just maybe, some of what I'd written would've sunk in, and I could build on that slow progress I felt us making earlier.

As it is, we left the rehab facility with Lindsey begging to be allowed to come back, and me shyly asking Sara if that was ok. I think on the way she looked at me, as if she knew that part of me was nervous that she'd tell me she didn't want me there again, in front of my own daughter no less. She smiled at me – dare I say it? – a _sweet_ smile, not the sarcastic or self-satisfied smirk I'm used to seeing from her, and told me that of course it was ok, it'd be great to see us there again sometime.

Over-thinking on the freeway, I wonder how much of that was for my benefit and how much was for Lindsey's. It's entirely possible that she didn't want to let my not-so-little girl down, or maybe she just doesn't know how to say no to a child. Or maybe Catherine, you're being paranoid and Sara genuinely meant that she wouldn't hate it if you came back. Whatever her reasons, I tell myself, it's kind of irrelevant in the end anyway. The point is that Sara agreed that I could come and see her again whatever her motivation may have been, and that means that I should put aside these new and sudden insecurities and get on with my original intentions to try and find a way in so that she has some support.

I nod my head even though no one can see it; in fact probably _thankful_ that no one can see it since it's the result of an imaginary conversation with myself.

But is it selfish though that my original goal seems to have changed slightly so that now I really want it to be _me_ that Sara looks to for support, rather than just making sure that there's somebody in the outside world who she trusts? I realise that it probably is, and wonder why and when this changed. Am I using it as a power trip of some kind? I've already admitted to myself that my self-confidence is wrapped up in my sexuality. Well, as much as that's true, and related to that fact I guess, a lot of my self-esteem also comes from power; a hazard of my old-Vegas upbringing I suppose. I frown; if that's the case here I need to be careful and make sure that I'm continuing in Sara's best interests, whether or not they include me.

Great, I think, now I'm questioning my own intentions. I raise an eyebrow and then realise that I need to stop making facial expressions at myself.

Before I can dig any deeper into my self-doubt, I've navigated Lindsey and I successfully back to the house. I turn around in the driver's seat to look at my sleeping daughter to find that surprisingly she's already awake. "Hey you," I smile at her, "I thought you were asleep."

"I was" she shrugs. " But I woke up and you seemed to be worrying about something, so I thought I'd leave you to it."

"Worried?" I ask, with a wide-eyed 'who, me?' expression.

"Yes mom, worried" she says, rolling her eyes at me. "You were thinking real hard and muttering to yourself."

"I was?"

"Mom, what happened to me being grown-up?"

"I didn't say you were grown-up Linds, I said you were _more_ grown-up than I'd realised." I stall, getting out of the car. I see her frown as she gets out and put my arm around her. "I was just over-thinking, I guess."

"About Sara?" she looks at me questioningly.

"Yeah. About Sara."

"I thought she seemed ok, mom. But then," she says, sighing and shaking her head slowly, "you never can tell." Leaving me stunned and slightly amused at her fourteen-going-on-sixty-four routine, she walks to the front door and lets herself into the house.

I guess she's right; you never can tell. But thinking back over today, no alarm bells immediately ring in my head. Maybe it's naivety, but I actually feel that today was a fairly positive starting point. Yes, I was nervous, and I think Sara was too, but then maybe next time there'll be less anxiety, and if there's a time after that, maybe even less. I decide that having made up my mind to keep a casual eye on my reasons for wanting to check up on Sara, there's no sense in being paranoid.

Wait and see, right?


End file.
